Chihayafuru is a friggin recap episode this week. In the middle of the high-tension final team game...shit, man, most shows at least have the courtesy to put their recap episodes in between story arcs.

I'm not really a hardcore anime fan, I like what I watch most of the time, but it's not something I actively seek out and follow. That being said, I recently checked out Madoka Magica to see what all the fuss was about. I really enjoyed it, but what I'm confused about is what I was supposed to be "reacting" to. Most of the huge fans of the show in my twitter feed have at one point mentioned how they "love watching people's reaction" to the show, without any detail. So as good of a series as it was, I didn't find anything overtly shocking about it, but was I supposed to?

I've never actually watched Madoka Magica (too much uguuu for me, usually that turns me off a show), but I've heard pretty much everything about the show and it sounds to me like it's one of those shows that's only really impressive if you were there alongside other people watching it (or you have friends that are smart enough to know that they should ask you to watch it without reading a single thing about it). It took what's usually a whimsical concept/world/art and played with the audience's expectations. If you don't go into the show blind it's otherwise a well-planned out and well-made show and there's not really a shortage of such shows if you watch more than one genre.

A good way to look at Puella is my watching the opening and ending. The opening is kind of ...what you expect in a magical girl show (the klutzy, sweet, cute Madoka and her magical friends fighting evil!!! -- Mami is there quite often too even though she's really only around for 3 episodes). But the ending is a much more dark and sad depiction of what is (maybe a bit more visually exaggerated) the actual nature of the show.

It is a magical girl show about cute girls fighting evil witches, but tries to attach more serious consequences to those power Sailor Moon was able to use every episode to 1HKO her enemies. Puella makes it a bit more of a risk to fight, and I don't want to say it's "realistic" (cuz "magical girl"), but implies greater consequences to actions, and an actual life and death factor, than Sailor Moon or any magical girl show does. Hathen put it really well in that it does play with your expectations (none so shockingly at first than Mami's "final scene", or even Homura's many quests and failures). It's a dark twist to the magical genre which is usually meant to be a light-hearted, girly, and "flowery" genre.

I see what you're saying, I guess going in to the show without any expectations made the disconnect a little less obvious to me. Again, really great series (love how episode 10 completely changed the premise and main character), I was just wondering what it was I missed.

I can't even tell what the show is about (I'm guessing swimming). To me it just looks like typical pandering, just in reverse. Guys with perfect faces and chiseled bodies finding excuses to take their shirts off every episode. Fujoshi will love it.

I've never understood the appeal of sports anime myself. I watched a couple episode of Slam Dunk when I was a lot younger but I was never crazy about it.

I can't even tell what the show is about (I'm guessing swimming). To me it just looks like typical pandering, just in reverse. Guys with perfect faces and chiseled bodies finding excuses to take their shirts off every episode. Fujoshi will love it.

I've never understood the appeal of sports anime myself. I watched a couple episode of Slam Dunk when I was a lot younger but I was never crazy about it.

The only sports anime I ever really got into was Battle Athletes, but space sports in the future is more just funny and for fun (though I do hear with the right crowd Slam Dunk and Prince of Tennis were great).Given the last 10 KyoAni anime were simply school shows (and while this isn't exactly an exception), I do like the added adjunct surrounding swimming (I used to take lessons myself before college) and I hope they can work in a competitive edge.

And I don't follow. Swimmers are supposed to NOT be taking of their shirt and have athletic bodies?? Should they have whale blubber pouring over the sides of their trunks?? And I guess an anime should make their characters ugly too now?? I really don't see your complaints as legitimate ones. Of course, I don't really find ripped anime men that attractive either, but I don't see what they're supposed to do otherwise.

They're not really complaints, just observations, I guess I might've given that impression, but you have to admit that the PV really didn't show much beyond "look at how hot these guys are". I just think sometimes anime (and in fairness, almost every other form of entertainment) becomes too concerned about marketing the character designs rather than the product as a whole, and that leads to the creation of a lot of shows created specifically to show these off rather than an earnest creation of a show. At the risk of sounding snobbish, it makes it feel more like a product and less like a work of art. (That is, are they making a show about swimmers so we have characters with their shirt off, or are we saying "let's create a show with a bunch of topless men" and come to the natural conclusion that it should be about swimming?)

At the same time, I don't really care if people enjoy these things/aspects or not, but I'll call a spade a spade.

I wasn't really trying to imply that this particular show necessarily is one of those products, because obviously I haven't seen it yet, or even that I dislike these aspects being in a show, but the way that PV is edited is obviously only marketing how attractive those men are.

I generally like KyoAni's stuff, but then they're usually doing adaptions of material that's already pretty good to start with. They are mostly known for their animation quality more than their writing. Their latest show, Tamako Market, is I believe the first original work and I have to say I thought it was extremely disappointing. Boring characters, confused tone, didn't really feel like it knew what it wanted to be.

This Free thing is also an original work, I believe. I wonder if they'll do any better this time...

And when is KyoAni going to do more Haruhi? There is still a ton of material from the novels just waiting for it...

I generally like KyoAni's stuff, but then they're usually doing adaptions of material that's already pretty good to start with. They are mostly known for their animation quality more than their writing. Their latest show, Tamako Market, is I believe the first original work and I have to say I thought it was extremely disappointing. Boring characters, confused tone, didn't really feel like it knew what it wanted to be.

Wow! So that Kyoto Animation preview for their company is becoming a real anime called "Free!"Why is it worth attention?

Lack of moe women for a all-male main cast!!

The animation and atmosphere style looks good, I might check out an episode or two (but if it becomes more slice-of-life shenanigans, I'd probably tune out).

I'll give this a shot. I believe completely 100% that this was created to pander, and I have 0 interest in the sex appeal of the characters (I like my dudes big and hairy), but occasionally its nice to have a show like this where I know what to expect and can shut my brain off and watch people do things. I'm also curious to see how the anime that was inspired from a commercial turns out.

I can't even tell what the show is about (I'm guessing swimming). To me it just looks like typical pandering, just in reverse. Guys with perfect faces and chiseled bodies finding excuses to take their shirts off every episode. Fujoshi will love it.

I've never understood the appeal of sports anime myself. I watched a couple episode of Slam Dunk when I was a lot younger but I was never crazy about it.

Sports anime/manga is the exact same thing as Martial Arts anime/manga but without the field restriction. The only thing that matters is whether you're reading/watching something akin to Teppu (for lack of a better example) versus Inazuma 11 on the sliding scale of sudo realism versus bullshit magical whatever.

The only sports anime I ever really got into was Battle Athletes, but space sports in the future is more just funny and for fun (though I do hear with the right crowd Slam Dunk and Prince of Tennis were great).Given the last 10 KyoAni anime were simply school shows (and while this isn't exactly an exception), I do like the added adjunct surrounding swimming (I used to take lessons myself before college) and I hope they can work in a competitive edge.

And I don't follow. Swimmers are supposed to NOT be taking of their shirt and have athletic bodies?? Should they have whale blubber pouring over the sides of their trunks?? And I guess an anime should make their characters ugly too now?? I really don't see your complaints as legitimate ones. Of course, I don't really find ripped anime men that attractive either, but I don't see what they're supposed to do otherwise.